To be really disappointed and angry that NCT allow MLMs so much access to vulnerable new mums

[throwingpebbles]

Just that really. Was discussing with my mum about MLM's like Forever Living and how awful it is that they

• target new mums in particular and exploit their divided wishes to be with their children / need to earn money
• make completely unfounded claims about purported health benefits of the products

I then got on to explaining how these very companies are at nearly every NCT event; and worse still discussions on mumsnet and a Google search suggests many NCT committee members themselves are involved

In the words of my mum " thirty years ago the worst danger at an NCT coffee morning was being given a cup of tea with goats milk in it. Now you risk being sucked into an organisation that exploits women and encouraged them to make ridiculous claims about aloe"

It is just really disappointing. I thought NCT was there to advise and protect women?? Instead they are allowing ready access to MLMs that make it clear in their training that a key "target" for recruitment should be new mums! Plus they are encouraged to make far fetched claims about the health benefits of the products

Fittingly, after ranting away to my mum, I came home and found
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1699236280347393&id=1647635148840840&notif_t=like&ref=m_notif

If someone could link the NCT complains form/contact I'm sure some of us will take the time to fill it in as some of us can relate to feeling this way

Throwing, yes, but that's probably why the committees remain unaware of if. I'm not defending it but saying I can see how it happens. And they possibly aren't all actively recruiting, one of the reps for one of the ones I have listed has been one of my closest circle of friends for years and she has never so much as mentioned the possibility of any of the rest of us joining her, either in real life or on her personal/business FB pages.

whoknows like throwing says, they wouldn't do it at the event. Potential recruits would fill in a free prize draw, the person would then have all their contact details to follow up with them after the event. (and another thing to think about is how they then hold all those details, data protection etc)

If some committees know enough to ban MLMs it begs the question why NCT head office haven't been alerted by those committees. And wouldn't the complaint carry more weight if made or backed up by input from NCT committee members

And with Forever the issue is not just recruting; it is also the shocking medical claims.....this has some appalling but typical examples

I don't think it's fair to do a blanket ban on all mlm companies. Like others have said, they don't make unsubstantiated claims or recruit at these kind of events. Where do you draw the line? Avon, body shop, candle parties? These are a source of income for lots of people who work hard and make a living to fit around their lifestyles.

I think the only angle you could really use is the 'health' claims made by FL and the recruitment issue.

I dislike FL - I think it's a cynical pyramid scheme with really dubious health claims swirling around it, but as far as I know, it is operating lawfully in the UK. "Awful, but lawful" if you like.

NCT are run by volunteers. The local committee may decide that volunteers can have their businesses at event for nothing. Or they might not and charge them full whack, or offer a discount or whatever.

If you dislike it that much, give up your time and volunteer for your local committee.

If this was happening at the paid for classes I think you'd have much more of a complaint.

I'm going to our local NCT sale in a couple of weeks, I'll keep my eyes peeled for FL flyers.

I can't bring myself to be more than mildly irritated by this. Yes, MLM is exploitative but if you try and shield new mothers from every rapacious organisation trying to get money off them you end up arguing yourself into a position where you're treating adult women as idiots incapable of thinking for themselves purely because they've reproduced.

There was a FL stall at our local hospital last week, in the area where the 'friends' usually have their cake stall. I was possibly more disappointed in the lack of lemon drizzle, but have written to the hospital fired off and email expressing doubts as to the suitability of FL peddling their crap on premises. No reply to date.

Wibbly Neals Yard does have a MLM structure for selling but as far as I have seen, there is not the same targets / meetings / pressure to recruit if you don't want to. My beauty therapist uses their products and so she is a consultant as a lot of her clients (including me!) like to buy through her as its easier than a shop or online etc.

I have to disagree shirking, I went to an event (not nct) where an arbonne representative told me that the reason johnsons no more tears shampoo doesn't make babies cry is because they put anaesthetic in it, she then found some momentum and told me razor manufacturers deliberately put substances on their razors to make them rust quickly so you buy more. Whether she believed these claims it was just repeating what she had been told I don't much care as a quick google showed me these were not true.

If you would like to raise concerns with NCT head office please just email [email protected] and you if you put "complaint" in the subject line it will be dealt with as a complaint.

Each NCT branch is run by volunteers. Some are very conscientious and will read all the information available to them and attend the training which is offered so that they are aware of guidelines and how to support parents appropriately. Occasionally some do not have the time or inclination to do this. Branches need to raise funds to support the charity and to support their local efforts - for example, my branch runs a very successful Bumps & Babies group and throughout the year we (on a monthly basis only) will have either someone selling something or someone promoting their baby/child related service but we keep it to no more than once a month so new parents don't feel constantly bombarded by people trying to flog them stuff!

At Christmas we do a "shopping event" and get local traders along - jewellery, Neals Yard, homemade soaps and bathbombs, craft bits - you get the idea. We have, in the past, had someone with aloe vera stuff and I think she may have been part of Forever Living. To be honest, she set up a stall to sell products, she wasn't trying to recruit anyone - we'd have said no to that.

But other volunteers may not realise that some traders are part of MLM schemes, and it gets VERY difficult if a branch volunteer then starts trying to use their position in the branch to flog something.

If your NCT branch is hosting events with MLM traders there, please first raise your concerns with the branch, and if you're not happy with the response - as I said - [email protected]

I can't bring myself to be more than mildly irritated by this. Yes, MLM is exploitative but if you try and shield new mothers from every rapacious organisation trying to get money off them you end up arguing yourself into a position where you're treating adult women as idiots incapable of thinking for themselves purely because they've reproduced.

Yes, this. I'm also slightly disturbed by the imputation in a lot of this that a woman on maternity leave by definition is agonisingly torn between devoting herself entirely to her child and the world of work, leaving her particularly prone to believing the frankly incredible claims of MLMs. I'm sure it is true of some women -- though I don't recognise it at all from my experience of NCT groups or coffee mornings or indeed any of my friends and family who have had children in this country or others - but it's pretty reductive and stereotyping.

Sigh.

However patronising some of you find it, we know that FL et al deliberately target women on maternity leave. Say whatever else you want about them, they're a highly sucessful organisation, and they do it because it works. Clearly not every woman on ML is desperately trying to avoid going back to work because she can't bear the thought of being away from her baby, but equally clearly more than zero women on ML are feeling that way. There are posts on here to that effect all the time. I never dreaded going back to work myself, but that doesn't mean other women didn't. And another thing we also know is that lots of new mothers are vulnerable: to PND, feelings of isolation. There are women who choose to attend NCT events because they feel that way. This is why women on maternity leave are a favoured target for Forever Living.

These are facts. They don't stop being facts because neither you nor anyone you know felt like this. I despise Forever Living but they're good at what they do. Ask yourself why they'd be targeting people on ML if it didn't work.

What jizzy said!

I work part time, I have no issue with working or sahm but you only need to be on mumsnet a few days to see that it is a highly emotive issue for many.

Well, clearly the NCT shouldn't be promoting this nonsense, but the 'problem' of women on ML is clearly a social one - lack of affordable, high-quality childcare for all, a workplace culture which is still prejudiced against women with children, and a society which is not particularly hospitable to the presence of children in public places and still views the care of children as a 'women's issue'. Those are undeniably issues which face women on ML, but it's no help to anyone to conceive of the perceived 'vulnerability' of women on ML to MLMs as something inherent to the women themselves, and as if they're incapable to finding and evaluating the enormous amount of accurate MLM-related information available.

Again, though, there are clearly women who aren't. That's just a fact. Women in the immediate postpartum period are, as a group, in one of the more vulnerable points in their adult lives. There's no getting around this, and it's extremely important that we don't allow it to be obscured.

Sure, the actual not perceived heightened vulnerability of some women to MLM while on ML is one in a long list of reasons why we as a society need to solve a number of the problems you mention joseph. At least some of this is effectively inflicted on women by poor support, isolation etc. Equally, the solution to this issue in an NCT context, which is what this thread is about, is for the NCT to stop giving a platform to this shit. It's actually that simple.

I would be concerned that women who do need an income might give up their job instead of returning from maternity leave, in order to 'get their business off the ground'. I think it's a significant challenge to get a new job with a small baby and it is often much harder to get a pt job than arrange for the job you're in to be pt (if that's what you want). Yes, they are adults, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't curb organisations that don't really work for the vast majority of the people recruited.

Yes, they are adults, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't curb organisations that don't really work for the vast majority of the people recruited.

This is what it comes down to. We have any number of laws preventing certain types of exploitation, including that of adults. That's one of the reasons pyramid schemes are illegal, and presumably nobody feels patronised by that. Most people are ok with the concept of adults being protected from themselves at least sometimes. I have no doubt that FL et al take pains to ensure they don't fall within the tight legal definition of pyramid scheme, so I'm not accusing them of being that, but they are very definitely not working for the vast majority of the people recruited. In the same way as pyramid schemes don't.

I don't think a total ban is warranted either, Over the years I've bought things from people selling Usborne Books, Phoenix Cards, Jamie Oliver crockery, Pampered Chef, Tropic and probably a few more and no one has ever tried to recruit me. I've read through the long running MLM bot threads on here and I can see that some of them are misleading and exploitative, but still believe that for a lot of people it is just a way of making a few pounds while getting out and about meeting people.

There are MLMs and MLMs though, aren't there? Usborne are actually selling a reasonable product that people might actually want to buy regardless of the selling arrangements. A quick look at all the FL stuff being offloaded cheap on Ebay suggests that's not the case. Put simply, the market for kids books is wider and more robust than the market for aloe vera toothpaste at a fiver a tube or whatever it is. Also I don't think Usborne make bogus health benefits about their product, unless I'm very behind the times and they're now suggesting eating them to detox, so that's less objectionable than the ones who do.

Exactly, so it seems unfair to ban Usborne books just because you ban FL. I would support a ban on FL but not MLMs across the board.

Do Usborne specifically target women on ML in the same way FL and Younique do?

Yep, usborne aren't (I assume) claiming their products cure Autism/arthritis/ cancer ......

YANBU. I hope you manage to effect a change - I know someone who is left in terrible debt due to drinking the FL kool-aid.